Category: Personal

Rolling Stone named Little Steven, Miami Steve Van Zandt–Silvio Dante to his Northern New Jersey pals–a Person of the Year. He’s rocking all over the world on tour with Bruce, getting gruff and resentful on the tub with Tony, and leading a rock revival on the radio with his own Underground Garage.

Some months ago, probably late march or early April, road crews came in and ripped the asphalt off a stretch of road covering an overpass. Specifically, where Whisman Road goes over Central Expressway and the CalTrain tracks. No big deal, probably routine maintenance work, I figured. A few weeks go by and no crew cmes back to repave; okay, this is probably the busy time of year for them. A few months go by and I start to wonder. November hits and I start getting annoyed.

I actually go over this stretch of road on average once in each direction every day so the sequences of holes and rough concrete does matter. I emailed the Public Works Department at the City of Mountain View. An engineer there responded but said the project was under county control. After a week more, he wrote back with the name and contact information for the person managing the work.

I called there just now and got a load of hooey that adds up to one word: bureaucracy. At its finest, I’m sure. The engineer said that the project was supposed to be routine maintenance on the joints supporting the roadway but when the crew opened things opened, substantial damage was found and requires more work than was budgeted for to correct. Of course there are spending limits, $100,000 in this situation, and the work would cost more than that to complete. The best answer the county department can think of is to leave their mess behind and wait until early next year to write a proposal for another project to fnd the rest of the work. Meanwhile drivers can go spit.

He actually admitted that his department has not even written the proposal for the remaining work yet. What the heck if eight months go by and the thousands of drivers that use this road every day get annoyed and annoyed without so much as a sign to explain things. Yeah, that’s the way we like our government.

My site seems to average about 175 hits a day. Which is fine, though not in the garret or Steve range, but almost all of the hits come from search engines rather than links from other sites. (I do certainly appreciate the links from friends.) Lately, an amusingly large percentage of the hits have come from terms similar to ‘2003 movies’.

In the course of spelunking tonight, I hit stevenberlinjohnson.com. Steven is the author of the very hot, very now book Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. He wrote about a concept, which was quickly given the name Googleshare, which uses the Google web services API to calculate the percentage of hits a second search term has within a bigger set. For example, Johnson gives the following numbers:

Emergence: 1,450,000 hits

Emergence with SBJ: 5190

Mindshare: .3%

So a couple of bright fellows quickly whipped up implementations of the idea. One of them, by edward george, is publicly available (that is, you don’t need to supply your own Google API key) so I took a shot to see what my Googleshare was with “2003 movies” and the result was quite surprising: ‘billsaysthis’ has a 10.6% googleshare of ‘”2003 movies”.’ And that goes a long way to explaining the volume of hits.

In our ongoing look at the changing world of NFL head coaches, I notice that my most recent prediction has come true. Far from being the Redskins’ starting quarterback for the rest of the season, Shane Matthews was demoted for second time to third on the depth chart. Coach Spurrier has yet to decide between Danny Wuerffel and Patrick Ramsey for his next victim/starter but both seem likely to get significant playing time.

Good for a laugh: Spurrier said “The offense has struggled. We’ve struggled in pass protection. So it’s not all on Shane. But we want to see what the other guys can do.” As if they haven’t all had the chance to be screwups in his Not Ready for the NFL Offense.

In an Associated Press story on the wires today, we get some very positive Atkins Diet news:

At least three formal studies of the Atkins diet have been presented at medical conferences over the past year, and all have reached similar results. The latest, conducted by Dr. Eric Westman of Duke University, was presented Monday at the annual scientific meeting of the American Heart Association, long a stronghold of support for the traditional low-fat approach.

Of course, with the Sweet One and I well over the 50 pound (combined) loss level in less than three months, we had no doubt on this but to see some Establishment types begin to show positive studies is very nice.

Have the guy who wrote the screenplay for Sum of All Fears rewrite the classic Frankenheimer/Sinatra Manchurian Candidate, with Denzel Washington in the Sinatra role. No director yet attached. Man o’ Manischewitz, as we used to say. And since when is Tina Sinatra a movie producer? According to IMDB, she’s still looking for a follow-up to her classic (he-he) miniseries biography of dear departed Daddy.

More precisely, Dylan’s own website. A very nice example of how to be fan friendly without going overboard. In contrast to, say, Springsteen, Dylan posts complete streaming versions of songs that he’s performing in concert; he did Something as a tribute to George Harrison the other night and it’s up on the site already, as well as current tour versions of Zevon’s Mutineer and Henley’s The End of the Innocence.

Bruce has clips of each of the songs on his current album but that’s it. To judge by his website, you’d almost think The Rising is his first release–there’s absolutely zero mention of any of his prior albums. Hell, Dylan’s site has a page that allows one to search for songs based on lyrics! Both sites have links labelled “Discussion”, presumably message boards, but neither page would open for me in Crazy Browser, had to slip back to IE to view. Didn’t really check Dylan’s but for Bruce I think the main Usenet newsgroup, rec.music.artists.springsteen is better.

Color samples. Or color samples. I like Van Gogh.

and…

Welcome to Contractors State License Board, including Home Improvement Contracts: Putting the Pieces Together – Writing Contracts

Seeing a trend?

Something, say, from MetaFilter? Not the kind of thing I like to wear but YMMV.

Me too, not trying to pull that particular piece of wool over anyone’s eyes. Shows up in different ways with different people. John Allen Muhammed, Osama Bin Laden, Admiral John Poindexter, Ken Lay, Dusty Baker, those are some easy and obvious ones currently in the public view. A friend passed along a link to ExtremeIroning.com last night.

Extreme Ironing is, in their own words, “the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt.” These goofballs even held a World Championship in September! And let’s not forget about the German Extreme Ironing Section and the Austrian Ironing Team. There are many pictures of the absurdity on these websites (and others as well, I’m sure) but here is one photo that should give you some idea of the depths of this brand:

Furthermore, today is the day for all you hand fiends: the 2002 International Rock Paper Scissors Championships are going down tonight in Toronto.

I leave the answer as to my own form of insanity, in the tradition of K&R, as an exercise for the reader.

Thanks to Nelson Weiderman, a fellow curmudgeon, a minor annoyance in the PHP class that I posted to the PHP Classes Repository has been resolved. The class didn’t really handle the last day before an event very well and now it does. Get the new version and rejoice! (Actually you only need one file.)

Flush with the excitement of the Sweet One’s passing her road test this morning, we decided to take in a matinee of the latest from Paul Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia), starring Adam Sandler. Sandler wears an odd shade of blue suit throughout the movie, as in every scene, though he can never really explain why even though several other characters ask. This kind of serves as a representation of the movie as a whole.

In other words, Punch Drunk Love fits well with the kind of major studio art house film that is Mulholland Drive, the previous film I saw. Completely opposite in tone and tenor, filled with love and light where Mulholland was filled with violence and darkness, but once again a film that works (and it does work) on a deeper level than just putting out a linear plot.

Sandler spends much of the film running. Which put me in mind of this week’s episode of Smallville as Clark ran the 450 or so miles from Smallville to Edge City. He also falls in love with Emily Watson. Maybe it was the makeup and lighting Anderson used, perhaps a deliberate device, but even though Watson is a year younger than Sandler, she appears to be much older than him, not enough to be his mother but perhaps his mother’s younger sister. Philip Seymour Hoffman, who must have damaging photos of Anderson in a safe deposit box, plays a phone sex operator/scam artist; Sandler runs from the movie’s San Fernando Valley base to Hoffman’s Utah store to conclude their argument in person.

The film also uses some very odd transition graphics, swabs of slowly moving colors, which can be scene on the official website’s page of downloads. Since the whole site is a Flash app (like most movies, unfortunately), I can’t really link to them. The site also offers mp3s of a number of the odd background music used, very reminiscent in several cases of early ’70s Cage/Riley-influenced found jazz experiments.

Not, in other words, a typical Hollywood movie. Plus, Sandler proves he can really act though I don’t expect him to morph into the next Tom Hanks (i.e., Bosom Buddies to Philadelphia). Anderson, younger than either Sandler or Watson, will clearly be seen in 10 to 20 years as one of the more important directors around.

Recommended

Yesterday was such a complete cockup that I needed 24 hours to relax enough to write about it! The Reds threw themselves out the Champions League window with a 3-3 draw against FC Basel. Manager G. Houllier stated afterwards that “we’ll be back” and they surely will since all that’s required is a fourth place or better Premiership finish.

But the boys have certainly hit a road bump! Yesterday’s result looks better than it was as three goals were given up in the first 30 minutes and none were put in the plus column until the second half! Finally the team woke up and made a ferocious charge but to no avail as the Swiss were able to hold Owens and Co. off just enough. So the final group standings are Valencia first and then Basel claiming the other slot in the Round of 16, and Liverpool and Moscow sitting home to sulk.

This followed a very sad weekend loss to Middlesboro, with no goals at all scored, but LFC still stands first in the EPL. Next up is a match at Anfield against Sunderland on Sunday; this should be a relatively easy three points, given the visitor’s poor showing all season plus several key injuries, but apparently no match can be taken for granted with the topsy turvy play of late!

Jesus swings his heavy arm

Sometimes, I wonder in the recesses

Walk, walk with a diamond broach upon your lapel

Turn and talk to the woman on your right.

Take a moment to check a clock

Set it back to front, firmly

Grasp the hand when extended

Listen closely for skittering animals.

Running across the flat slate roof

Soft grey clouds pass along a powdery blue sky

I wonder what the color-blind man sees

Looking up, does he cry?

Tears are fat and wet with salt

Then absorb, pain recedes, recurs, redolent

An interior monologue revisits a childhood

Sadness will find a mate in a fierce, fearsome widower.

A path appears at the edge of a meadow

To one side a red and yellow bird screetches

To one side a green grass snake hisses, slithers, flicks its tongue

Can the color-blind man see the arm waving him on?

Inflation is one thing, but the price on some necessary items are increasing at far more than that rate. I just got the renewal notice for my auto insurance policy, for example, and there is a 15% price increase. My agent said to blame it on investment losses and years of price cutting to win market share. Similarly, our homeowner association’s insurance policy (covering common areas and the like) increased by a similar amount when the policy renewed last month. This morning in the Merc, an article explained that due to fears of war with Iraq the price of gas has gone up substantially in the last month here in California. Fears of war? Nothing has actually changed, in other words, but maybe it will and so we should pay more today? Cha-ching for somebody, eh?

What is Marmoleum?

I know I do. Hate is such a strong word but so appropriate in this instance. When I first grew facial hair, around age 17 or 18, I didn’t even attempt to shave, just grew a beard. Curly, all over my face since I made little or no attempt to trim it. Boy did everyone hate it! Except Carol, my girlfriend during freshman year in Pittsburgh, who somehow liked it. Fortunately, no pictures exist from this period of my life.

In fact, I think if I’d been born ten years later and had some tiny little bit of aptitude for biochemistry, I would have gone into research. My subject? A chemical solution (liquid, gel, who cares which) to remove facial hair. I suppose any hair though I would personally only want it for my face. Preferably something that lasted about a week or so. What about Nair, you ask? I don’t know except that I’ve been told that it just doesn’t work for men at all or even well for women.

I do wonder why no company has ever come out with such a product. Can’t be impossible. Wouldn’t some rich person want to sponsor the research? There must be one who hates shaving as much as me. All the cuts and bruises on my face, it just sucks!

Some people make up their minds first and try to fit facts into a supporting structure afterwards, even scientists who would claim they have no vested interest in the result. Take, for example, Dr. D. Paul Robinson and the work he did that’s reported in US Teen Dies After Following High-protein Diet.

The research concerns a 16-year-old girl who collapsed suddenly and died after spending one to two weeks on a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet. The doctor admitted “there might be other explanations for the teen’s death, including an abnormal heart rhythm,” but claims a diet she was on for less than two weeks did so much damage to her heart that she passed away.

On the other hand, the Atkins people (contacted for comment on this story) pointed out that they were not aware of this situation’s particulars but “that the Atkins approach has been used by millions of Americans for 30 years now, and there have been no documented cases of serious reactions or fatalities.” There is no evidence presented that the girl actually followed the Atkins plan or followed any specific plan and in any case the plans do not even suggest that individuals should eat no carbohydrates and they should also take supplmental vitamins and minerals.

Maybe it’s me, but I just see this as another attempt by the medical establishment, specifically the American Dietetic Association, to denigrate and slander the low carb Way of Eating whenever or wherever they can. As time goes on, and their objections are more and more taken as foolish objections based on emotional commitment to previous pronouncements to a plan that actually works, I suppose these people just get more desperate. Sad, really.

Nearly a week later and the analysis keeps pouring in, along with related news that makes one wonder if anyone other than the extremely rich will ever prosper again.

Bob Herbert goes Behind the Smile to make clear to us that he sees nothing to cheer about in the prospect of Republicans being able to pack the courts (possibly including two or more seats on the Supreme Court), further drain federal entitlement programs of funds (and you were already certain that Social Security and Medicare would be flat broke before your turn, weren’t you?), and make a mockery of environmental and consumer protection laws.

Dan Gillmor, in the unlinkable (and currently unreachable) SJ Mercury News, goes with a straightforward headline for his Sunday column: “Election will make life better — for the rich.” You should know that Gillmor is fairly radically anti-establishment but I always wonder a little about why his bosses keep him around. Anyway, he’s in Hong Kong lecturing at a university there and likens what we’ll be facing here soon enough (in his opinion) to the “cartel economy” that scoiety has developed. “In reality, Hong Kong is largely a cartel economy, where essential parts of the business structure are controlled by a few powerful companies. Elites in business and government are collaborators, sometimes for the public good and sometimes to ensure their own continuing dominance and wealth.” He actually doesn’t go much further than Herbert.

Finally we have a review (in yesterday’s Merc) of Rich Dad’s Prophecy, the latest book from the authors of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. To show you where the book goes, there is the not at all subtle subtitle “Why the Biggest Stock Market Crash in History is Still Coming… And How You Can Prepare Yourself and Profit From It!” Short short is that in about 14 years our investments are going to get swamped by the other side of the same coin that drove the market to such heights in the ’90s: 401(k) and other direct contribution plans. Remember, the law (ERISA) requires that holders begin making withdrawals from these accounts no later than the year in which they reach age 70 1/2.

Right now most people reaching that age are covered by the previously-prevalent direct benefit pension plans–Gretchen Morgenson actually has a good column in the NY Times about current problems with this type of accounts–and so the flow has been all into investments. More money looking to buy has been a force driving stocks higher for years. But in the next decade the huge wave of baby boomers will begin retiring and reaching the age where they must withdraw. What happens when more people want to sell? You guessed it. Seems like there will be time to fix this, since it will be in the interest of the cartel to do so, but otherwise will be very scary!

The afore-mentioned San Diego. Chicago. Pittsburgh, sort of.

San Diego was, after all, playing against the third strong St. Louis quarterback, Marc Bulger, and gave up two touchdowns in the last six minutes of the game. Bulger set a team record–this is Kurt Warner’s team, isn’t it?–with 36 completions (on 48 attempts) for 453 yards passing. Jeff Wilkens kicked about the perfect on-side kick after the first score and Dre Bly plucked the ball out of waiting Charger hands. The offense, with Marshall Faulk standing injured on the sidelines, just couldn’t be stopped. San Diego: 6-3 on their way to 8-8 and an early tee time?

Chicago had a 21 point lead in the third quarter against New England. But Peninsula native Tom Brady is showing he’ll be the next…Drew Bledsoe but with the bonus of being a winner and he took the game in his hands, with some help from the finally woken up Patriot defense. Plus, the Bears offense left the building, unable twice (twice!) to pick up a first down when either one would have given them the chance to run out the clock, the Patriots having no timeouts left. New England: 5-4 on their way to 10-6 a wild card slot?

Technically this was a tie, not a loss, but it might as well have been since the Steelers missed an easy W. Pittsburgh was up against hot new quarterback Michael Vick. So who would be surprised that Atlanta rallied from a 17 point deficit? Probably anyone who checked the Steelers’ defensive results from the last month. And talk about bad coaching blowing a game! Bill Cowher is often called a genius, and he is one of the longest-serving head coaches in the NFL, so you tell me, why did he leave both overtime timeouts on the shelf when he could have given Tommy Maddox 40 more seconds? That should have been plenty to move the ball 25 yards for a field goal try; Tommy Maddox already had a Pittsburgh-record 473 yards passing and four touchdowns and Amos Zeroue had 123 yards rushing. But instead they ended up with the NFL’s first tie since the Giants and Redskins played to a 7-all stalemate on Nov. 23, 1997. Steelers: 5-3-1, playing in the league’s weakest division, will surely make the playoffs but one wonders if they’ll escape their wild card opponent.